


And I Have Been Visited by the Angel of Music

by pixiyella



Category: Le Fantôme de l'Opéra | Phantom of the Opera & Related Fandoms
Genre: Canonical Character Death, F/M, Father Figures, One-Sided Attraction, Other, Redemption
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-06-08
Updated: 2016-06-08
Packaged: 2018-07-13 01:44:15
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: Major Character Death
Chapters: 2
Words: 1,613
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/7133489
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/pixiyella/pseuds/pixiyella
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>In one chapter, Erik muses to himself shortly before his death about the things he did wrong, the things he should have done, and what he wishes he had the time left to do. In another, Christine reminisces over her relationship with Erik, re-verifies with herself that she made the right choice in Raoul, and fully overcomes the death of her father. For, in reality, Christine was not visited by the angel of music. (Leroux novel heavy with elements from the Kay novel and musical referenced)</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Just a Man

Erik knew he made the right choice in letting Christine go, letting her be with the man she truly loved. He could now see, as well, that he should have made that right choice long before he did. His soul felt like it was on fire from the moment she let him kiss her upon the forehead, but it was a righteous burning. It was like all the sin his soul had accumulated was burning away in preparation for his death.

He had considered going to see a priest, perhaps whoever had taken Father Mansart's place in his little village outside of Rouen where he was born. Erik had dropped all pretense of religion long ago, but after kissing Christine, he felt perhaps there was a compassionate deity out there, somewhere. However, Erik shook off the notion rather quickly- what more redemption could God offer than the touch of Christine could? And in that, Erik did recognize his original flaw laid. He had elevated Christine too highly, desired her too much.

Of course, it was much more complicated than that. 

He has been possessive, murderous, angry, and jealous. He thought in his whirlwind of emotions he could bring Christine to love him, and she did love him as the Angel of Music. He was not, however, the Angel of Music, and Christine did not love him for him in the way he desired. Despite his other crimes, he considered his manipulation of her to be the most heinous of them all. 

Erik knew it was all wrong, somewhere within him. To take advantage of a young woman's yearning for her dead parent and the guardian he promised to send to her. To pose as the connection between her and her father. That had not stopped him. 

He thought of how he never met his own father. How he manipulated a woman's desire to reunite with hers. Erik wondered if he could have made a good dad, if given the opportunity. If putting something good into the world like an innocent child would have atoned him in the eyes of the world. However, deep down, he also wonders if he had, somehow, had a child, would he have tried to keep that poor child locked up in the cellars of the Opera House with him, alone from the rest of the world out of fear they would abandon him? 

Erik feels the redemption he won for himself burning, again, and decides that perhaps he would have, but he wouldn't now. That's the key difference. If he could go back and stop himself from committing the atrocities he had committed, he would stop some of them. Not all of them. He wasn't perfect, he was human (so painfully human), and humans are not kind creatures as a whole. But in the hours before his death, Erik was making immense progress.

The visit to the Persian wore him down more than he thought it would. It was necessary, and he was glad he did it, but he felt much weaker than when he left. But his heart was still going a thousand beats a minute, or so it felt.

 _Perhaps, if I had more time left,_ Erik thought, _I would give to the world a little of the music of the night._ That music he selfishly, lovingly reserved for Christine, for them in their underground world, that was now going to die with him. Perhaps he should have seen the good in the world, as she tried to hard to see in him even when there was none. 

Time was running out for Erik, now that he had saved himself in an act of generosity. Though he'd never take credit for it. He knew all to well that if Christine hadn't let him kiss her, he might never have let her go. Then, Erik would still be just as bitter and angry towards the world as he was before, and he'd be just as desperate for Christine as he always had been. 

He pondered the notion of Heaven. Something he had given up in his hatred for the world and his rejection of religion, was now all to real with his coming death and feelings of redemption. Perhaps it was real, perhaps it wasn't, or perhaps it just didn't matter because he'd be sent to hell anyways because he was still too tainted for those pearly gates. Erik decided if there wasn't an afterlife, he would simply make one.

He was quite good at making things.

And he would spend that after life watching over Christine, for try as he might he was still too _selfish_ to let her go completely from his heart. He would be an angel for her, truly, and for any children her and Raoul may have. And he wouldn't feel jealous of them having a normal and happy life. He would sculpt it, like he had composed music or designed buildings. 

_Or perhaps I'm merely dying, and that's all there is to it,_ Erik thought, but was oddly at peace. He didn't mind. He felt whole.

Erik put himself into that coffin he'd kept so dramatically for so many years as a bed, and shut his eyes.

A moment later, the Phantom of the Opera breathed his last.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I've always been rather fascinated with the story since I read the original book some years back, and wanted to sort of dabble in what I thought may be going through Erik's head as he prepared to die after visiting the Persian, and what might be going through Christine's head after her and Raoul are notified of the death. So, I hope you enjoyed this chapter and will enjoy the next!


	2. Father Once Spoke of an Angel

Late at night, Christine still thought about him. When the house was quiet, and Raoul was up late in his study and she had already retired to their room, Christine's thoughts would travel to topics that they had spoken little of in the last few months. Most often, Erik.

Sometimes, when she would wake up at night, needing to relieve herself or just a noise, she would swear she heard his alluring voice whispering out her name in the distance. She would go to the window, and Raoul would pull her back, chalking it up to remaining nerves from her turbulent time at the Opera.

It was so much more, though. It was every way Erik had carefully borrowed himself into her thoughts, had enchanted her and disarmed her senses. That was what was hard to shake. The power he had exercised over her. Yet, he was gone, and could exercise that power no more.

 _Does he still have hold on me from beyond the grave?_ Christine pondered, staring at the letter on the dresser near her bed, but not moving towards it. She had read it a thousand times already. The Persian wrote that, as part of Erik's dying wishes, he was informing the young couple of his death. 

Christine shook her head. Erik had never truly been more than a man- a genius, yes, but still a man. A man with so many ghosts and wrongs looming over him, could he ever truly rise to such a place in Heaven as to command her attention even now?

 _And even if he could, I doubt he would, now,_ She thought decidedly. Erik had let Raoul and herself flee. Was that not enough proof he had a change of heart towards his ways?

Still, Christine could not fully let go of him. The man who introduced himself as the Angel of Music, the connection between her and her father. Meeting him, when her daughterly respect began to blur with budding romantic feelings Erik was so carefully fostering inside of her... That was what Christine couldn't shake. It felt like, in a way, she had lost her father all over again. However, the fact remained he had never been the angel, and his false fatherly intent towards her was just a ruse disguising his romantic hopes. The Angel of Music had never visited her.

The Angel of Music, Christine decided, would never visit her. That was the hardest decision in belief the lady had ever made. The legend of the Angel had been her connecting point to her father, her way of never fully letting him go.

But now that he had let the tale go, she had to let her father go as well.

Christine knew it was for the best. She had a husband, and perhaps would foster a family of her own one day. She was a Vicomtess now. She could not, reasonably, look to her dreamy fiddler father to provide all the guidance she needed in these occupations. 

_I am my own woman. Not merely my father's daughter, or Erik's redeemer, or Raoul's wife. I am also Christine de Chagny._

She felt independent, and she had to admit, it was exhilarating.

However, she was also an honest person to herself, and admitted there were things that had enchanted her about Erik that were not present in Raoul, and vice versa. Sometimes, she did wonder of the life she would have had if she truly did stay with Erik. These thoughts, however, were mixed with the knowledge he had manipulated her, possessed her like an object, put her up on a pedestal too high for any mortal and loved her like a dog loves its owner. Except, of course, this dog had fangs and was a volatile guard dog.

That was how Christine remembered she made the right choice. She loved Erik, still, as a friend and a mentor. But loving each other would be like pouring acid into a river. Some things were not meant to be. 

Standing up, she grabbed the letter, and folded it up. She placed it into a drawer and locked it, soundly. _Perhaps he will direct the choirs of Heaven,_ Christine pondered for a moment, before deciding that he may have expectations too high for even the angels above.

 _Angels are different,_ Her thoughts continued, _But are they truly greater than men, at the heart?_

**Author's Note:**

> Ever since reading the original novel some years back, I've held a fascination with Erik's character, and to a degree his relationship to Christine Daae (though I am a staunch believer that she made the right choice in not staying with Erik, pitiable as he is). It occurred to me that, in the novel, it's likely that time elapses between when he talks to the Persian for the final time and his death. I wanted to detail some of his thoughts there, and then for me, it only made logical sense to go on and decide to also give a perspective from Christine on similar subjects.


End file.
